Mikvah Peeping Tom Rabbi Barry Freundel Issues Public Apology To Victims – And Especially To Other Rabbis

By Shmarya Rosenberg
Failed Messiah
September 9, 2015

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2015/09/mikvah-peeping-tom-rabbi-barry-freundel-issues-public-apology-to-victims-and-to-other-rabbis-456.html

“I am aware that my actions have had very negative repercussions not only in the D.C. area, but throughout the Jewish world,” Freundel continued. “In particular, I would ask for forgiveness from other rabbanim [rabbis] and Orthodox scholars, who may have had to fight harder than normal to uphold halakhic [Jewish legal] standards of observance in the face of criticism.” Above: Rabbi Barry Freundel

Mikvah voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel has issued a public apology months after pleading guilty to dozens of counts of voyeurism and months after he began serving a 6-1/2-year jail sentence.“No matter how many times I attempt to apologize, it will never be enough. I am sorry, beyond measure, for my heinous behavior and the perverse mindset that provoked my actions,” Freundel wrote.

The apology was posted online by the Washington Jewish Week.

Freundel used hidden cameras to video-record more than 150 women while they were completely naked preparing to immerse in the mikvah (ritual bath) adjacent to his Modern Orthodox synagogue in the tony Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. He pleaded guilty to 52 of those incidents and the others were not charged because they fell outside the short statute of limitations.

“On May 15th, as I sat in the courtroom listening the victim impact statements, each felt like a blade entering my gut. The speakers expressed their feelings of rage, hurt, humiliation, vulnerability and violation. How could I have been so incredibly blind, so unaware of my impact on others? I ask myself that question every day. I became a rabbi precisely because I wanted to help people, as well as being drawn to the depth and the scholarship of Judaism, and I have tainted that miserably,” Freundel wrote.

“I am aware that my actions have had very negative repercussions not only in the D.C. area, but throughout the Jewish world,” Freundel continued. “In particular, I would ask for forgiveness from other rabbanim [rabbis] and Orthodox scholars, who may have had to fight harder than normal to uphold halakhic [Jewish legal] standards of observance in the face of criticism.”

“There is no excuse for what I’ve done,” Freundel concluded. “Again, I’m truly sorry.”

Freundel wrote that he did not apologize to the victims individually, as Jewish law would require him to do, because doing so “could cause further harm” to some of his victims.